Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Vanillaware seemingly want their other games on PC too, but if you want that to happen, talk to their publishers

Oisin Kuhnke — Sat, 13 Jun 2026 21:54:06 +0000

Vanillaware might not be a household name to some of you, but it's got a library that hangs up there with the best of them. Odin Sphere, Dragon's Crown, 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim, all games that I have seen their biggest supports plead for you to play them on sites like Dwitter and Bluesky. Only problem for us lot is that none of them are on PC. Well, most of them, as just this week it was announced that one of their earlier titles Muramasa: The Demon Blade will finally be coming to PC. And, as it seemingly turns out, Vanillaware would like more of their games to be made available on PC… it's just not up to them.

Penguin Colony's demo shows life as a flightless bird is lonely, scary, awkward, and cosmically intriguing

Oisin Kuhnke — Sat, 13 Jun 2026 20:38:54 +0000

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that when you think of penguins and video games, Club Penguin is probably the one that comes to mind for you (or the Surf's Up adaptation if you're nasty). There aren't really a lot of games about these flightless birds, and they're normally on the sillier side when there are because penguins are funny little critters. Penguin Colony, the next game from the devs behind Umurangi Generation, doesn't completely abandon that silliness, but it does throw in some cosmic horror and the hubris of man in for good measure. And its first demo certainly sets the stage for an old experience.

Zlin City: Arch Moderna is a diorama city builder made with actual, physical models and based on a real Czech city

Oisin Kuhnke — Sat, 13 Jun 2026 17:55:02 +0000

City builders, kind of by definition, tend to be quite large in form. You're constructing an entire city here after all, and all the complications that come with that. So how about a citybuilder that's going for something a bit smaller? Meet Zlin City: Arch Moderna, a city builder designed to look like you're making dioramas, made by scanning actual, physical models, inspired by the real Czech city Ziln.

Whether you believe it or not, Final Fantasy 7 Revelation director Naoki Hamaguchi says the end's been planned from the start

Oisin Kuhnke — Sat, 13 Jun 2026 17:07:41 +0000

Generally when a game gets remade, you'll assume that it'll mostly be the same at least narratively, given how not normal can be with works that are considered uncomfortably sacred. That's certainly what many may have guessed about the Final Fantasy 7 Remake trilogy, only those pesky Whispers to get in the way offering some changes here and there. Rebirth continued that here and there, staying the course in other ways, and Revelation will be out next year with an ending you can't change. And according to director Naoki Hamaguchi, that ending has been planned right from the beginning, more or less.

Nintendo reportedly look set to net so little from their Palworld lawsuit you'll wonder why they bothered

Oisin Kuhnke — Sat, 13 Jun 2026 16:07:30 +0000

As with most suits of this nature, the one Nintendo filed against Palworld developer Pocketpair has been going on for a while now. Almost two years, in fact, specifically over infringement of patent rights related to specific mechanics, as opposed to anything like copyright. Nintendo suffered a bit of a loss earlier this year, and now it sounds like the whole thing might only net them what is essentially pocket change (for a billion dollar company, anyway).

"There's nothing worse than an AI-generated pitch": Bloober, Jagex, 11 bit and indie devs on the bruising hurdle of funding a videogame prototype

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell — Sat, 13 Jun 2026 11:00:00 +0000

Among the worries faced by game developers seeking a publisher is the gamble of a prototype – that is, "a playable build that meaningfully shows what’s good about your game – a proof of concept", in the summary of Suspicious Developments boss Tom Francis. Specifically, Francis says a "prototypable project is one where you can build that in an amount of time you can afford to lose".

Few independent devs have bags of time to lose, and there's no guarantee the labour will be rewarded. And yet, many publishers today won't even come to the table unless they can get their hands on a playable slice of a game. At Digital Dragons in Krakow this year, I spoke to people from 11 Bit, Jagex and Bloober Team, together with a couple of independent teams, about the seeming necessity of prototypes and the associated temptation to knock them together using generative AI.

What are we all playing this weekend?

Julian Benson — Sat, 13 Jun 2026 07:00:00 +0000

The weather has been an unpredictable mess of downpour and blazing sun this week, but Saturday feels like it could be the turn. Another chance for the sun to yank on the starter cord of summer and get that season's engine thrumming.

I simply refuse to have to turn back from another walk around the park because 10 metres from my front door the lovely sunshine is replaced by pelting rain.

I sure hope Crimson Desert's new pet limit means I can own 100 pigeons at once, even if I'll only have 50 in camp because Pearl Abyss are cowards

Mark Warren — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 16:13:26 +0000

Crimson Desert. It's basically an everything game at this point, so it's not too suprising that the latest update developers Pearl Abyss have put out takes the Red Pudding further down the road of being a Nintendogs competitor. The number of pets you can tame as you wander around Pywel has been growing gradually since launch and you can now have up to 100 of them. That seems dangerously impractical, but hey, video game.

Forza Horizon 6 PC players urged to check their Microsoft Gaming Services version, as Playground tackle disappearing saves

Mark Warren — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 14:50:11 +0000

Following some instances of Forza Horizon 6 players losing saves and ending up having to start over from scratch, developers Playground Games are starting to roll out fixes. For PC folks, they're advising a check that the latest version of Microsoft Gaming Services is running, as the app is the way PC-centric fixes for the issue are being rolled out.

Frontier are making a new Planet strategy management game that features neither Zoos nor Coasters

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 13:30:00 +0000

Planet Zoo and Planet Coaster developers Frontier have a new Planet game in development that involves neither zoos nor rollercoasters, a scandalous turn of events. The project features a "completely new setting", in fact, though it'll still be some kind of strategy management game.

Over the Hill might slap a chill sheen over SnowRunner’s rugged off-roading, but it’ll still drown your jeep in a second if you let it

Mark Warren — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 13:00:00 +0000

I really should learn to take this stretch of trail a bit more carefully. The one that runs precariously alongside the edge of a lake, dipping and getting muddier right at the point when it’s easiest to gently stumble into the water if you’re not paying enough attention. The one which seems the only passable route around a mountain to the final cabin I’ve yet to visit in this autumnal stretch of Canadian backwoods. I really should be more careful, I lament as my Land Rover sits uselessly slumped on its side under the waves, its engine having drowned a good five minutes ago.

Stranger Than Heaven will explore Tupac's "potential future" if "he was still alive now", according to RGG studio head

Mark Warren — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 12:25:16 +0000

In case you missed the opening night of this year's Summer Geoffs, Like A Dragon/Yakuza devs RGG Studio's Japanese history-hopping crime brawler Stranger Than Heaven got a release date. That was rather overshadowed, however, by the reveal that it'll feature a digitally resurrected version of rapper Tupac Shakur. While not the first deceased face to be confirmed as featuring in the game, that honour went to Japanese actor Bunta Sugawara, Shakur's inclusion naturally raised a lot of eyebrows. RGG boss Masayoshi Yokoyama's now spoken in more depth about the decision to include Tupac's likeness in a game about the origins of the Tojo Clan.

I will always fear the idle genre but wizard school RPG Abracademia is more enchanting than most, with around 300 spells to learn

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 11:55:01 +0000

I'm not sure I can imagine greater horror than that of the "desktop idle sim". My computer's desktop already fills me with confusion and dismay. It's a mixed media moraine of reaction gifs, rogue ebooks, abandoned drafts, and shortcuts for apps I uninstalled years ago. It is like seeing my life's failure reflected in the compound eye of the fly nibbling on my corpse. And now, you would have me run a small widescreen videogame at the bottom of the view? Madness. A small widescreen videogame about a mage attending mage school? Well, all right then. But give me a few seconds to at least sort by Item Type.

"Pay the gravity tax": In crushing strategy game Asema, your factories will become a vortex if they grow too vast

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 10:59:25 +0000

I like a factory simulation that fervently embraces the basic evilness of factory sims, these games about wrapping a smoking, clanking straitjacket around a realm of organic colours and unsuspecting resource deposits. Or in the case of Asema, around the wonders of the interstellar abyss, and whatever life it contains. "You are old, one of many," goeth the blurb. "There may be an infinite amount of your kind in the cosmos, older than stellar dust. But for you, the only space that matters is the one you can silence."

Gosh, that's a sentence, isn't it? Up there with "Sins of a Solar Empire" in terms of billowing nihilism. What else have you got to offer, Asema? You say you're replacing our beloved conveyor belts with huge railguns, so as to launch resource packages between factory nodes suspended in a 2D gravitational simulation? Yes, I think the grasping starbarons who read Rock Paper Shotgun would enjoy hearing about this.

Stop Killing Games-backed California bill targeting online game shutdowns "isn't going to be an easy thing" to enforce, says the politician behind it

Mark Warren — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 09:17:20 +0000

The main politician behind the Californian bill backed by the Stop Killing Games campaign that's currently making its way through the state's legislature has admitted that ensuring it's enforced likely won't be a walk in the park. Still, Assemblymember Chris Ward is hoping that if passed, the bill - which would see publishers shutting down servers for online games forced to provide full refunds or a version of the game players can keep on playing independently of said servers as part of the process - will have an impact which extends beyond California itself.

Ahead of its 1.0 launch, RuneScape: Dragonwilds fits in one more, scorching hot update later this month

Oisin Kuhnke — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 21:58:53 +0000

It's been a big week for RuneScape: Dragonwilds! The survival game spinoff of the MMO classic had its 1.0 release date confirmed at Geoff's Night of Shiny Ads, and now Jagex have another release date to hand over. This one's for Umbral Sands, the game's next big update that takes it to an incredibly hot looking desert.

Bounce 2 is a sequel to an Atari "PONG killer" that I'm pretty sure never existed

Oisin Kuhnke — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 20:48:59 +0000

There's something fishy going on here. Imagine you're me for a moment (sorry, I'm sorry, it'll be over soon). I'm having a browse on Steam, looking for anything a bit different, when you see a vibrant, CRT-interlacing ridden Atari-esque looking game called Bounce 2. I click on, and discover it's a sequel to a 1983 Atari 2600 game called Bounce that was designed to be a PONG killer, only to release during the infamous video game crash. Except I think none of this is true! Well, apart from the bit about Bounce 2 existing.

Starseeker: Astroneer Expeditions blasts off into early access today, with a full planet ready for you to explore

Oisin Kuhnke — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 18:03:32 +0000

A little bit of space travel, anyone? Last time I checked in on Starseeker: Astroneer Expeditions, the sort of spin off of regular ole Astroneer, it had only just shown off some gameplay for the first time. Apparently somewhere along the line I blinked and now here we are on its early access release day!

Tapestry is a painterly grand strategy multiplayer war game where you plot your victory at the start of every match

Oisin Kuhnke — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 17:13:07 +0000

Grand strategy games are often these slow, methodical things that require you to take your time, a genre that feels better suited solo. But how about a game that takes those same processes and throws in some multiplayer? In doing so you get Tapestry, a turn-based strategy game where you pit your faction against three others, all rendered in a painterly visage with deliciously choppy character animations.

X4: Foundations' Empire update, out now, delivers the space sim's biggest bout of battle balancing yet, plus RTS-style ordering and ship showrooms for showoffs

Mark Warren — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 16:05:28 +0000

Spaceshipper X4: Foundations just underwent an empire-sized overhaul dubbed the empire update, which is fitting for a game that famously lets you form your own angry empirical armada of spacefolk. Among the plans on the agenda for the Xtending of X4 have been a rebalancing of ship combat that devs Eogosoft reckon is their most substantial to date as well as some handy additions like the ability to recycle Kha'ak derelicts and issue priority orders which override all other comms chatter to your troops.

From Mr. Potato Head to a cosmic '70s documentary, Spore's creators share how it came to be

Oisin Kuhnke — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 16:03:57 +0000

I don't tend to think of Spore as a game that really came from any one person, moreso an omnipresent entity that just somehow installs itself on your computer. This is hogwash, of course, as it was made by creator The Sims Will Wright during his tenure at Maxis.

Drums, cash grants, and bubbling capybaras: How Latin America's game dev creatives are outgrowing outsourcing

James Archer — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 12:55:06 +0000

Easily missed among last week’s Summer Game Fest advert marathon was the Latin American Games Showcase: an exhibition that, at over eighty games strong, dwarfed the Keighley-fronted main event, yet has received only a small fraction of the eyeballs. Less than two months earlier, 154,000 visitors poured into Gamescom Latam to see games made across Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, Costa Rica, Mexico, Uruguay and more - but while that attendance was up 17.5% on the previous year, it totalled less than half the footfall of 2025’s Gamescom Cologne.

All the same, the audience gap faced by Latin America - to use the umbrella term for this vast and varied collection of nations - does not reflect a scarcity of clever or imaginative games. The diverse works being produced in these countries are as original as dinnertime RPG Family Reunion, as challenging as slavery-era naval battler Black Sailors, and as eye-catching as handpainted action-roguelike Talaka. The wider industry is taking note, too, with huge stacks of dollars pouring into Mexican, Brazilian, Argentinian, and Chilean organisations from the traditional powerhouses of North America and Europe.

However, this investment usually isn’t for the benefit of original games. At least, not directly. As it’s told by the creators themselves, the story of game development in these countries is one of a region that’s being mined for cheap, outsourced talent – yet has also formed a continent-spanning creative force, often by drawing directly from its own extensive range of cultures and histories.

Ubisoft are reportedly laying off up to 380 staff, as the Assassin's Creed publisher closes two studios and restructures another

Mark Warren — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 11:51:32 +0000

Ubisoft are reportedly continuing the ruthless cuts they've been insitituting in various stages since that start of this year, with the latest round seeing the publisher's Winnipeg and Belgrade studios closed down. At the same time, Ubisoft Barcelona is being restructured to focus solely on Rainbow Six games. As a result of all of that, up to 380 staff are reportedly at risk of losing their jobs.

Valor Mortis' acrobatic new demo makes me want to believe it's a soulslike prequel to Ghostrunner

James Archer — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 11:00:40 +0000

Update: A few hours after I posted this, One More Level announced that Valor Mortis is delayed from September 24th to October 13th. I'm leaving the rest of the article as it was, even though several of its jokes are ruined.

I thought I was pretty up to date on Valor Mortis, the Napoleonic first-person fencing soulslike underway at Ghostrunner devs One More Level, but it turns out I’d missed the four seconds of flesh magic hook-grappling in this prior trailer. As such, the swinging and wallrunning elements of the new, much-expanded demo ambushed me like British archers ambushed the French at Agincourt. Yes, I’m aware I’m about four hundred years off that simile being applicable.

Also, there’s another new trailer, and a release date: September 24th 2026. Hang on, that’s the same day as Control Resonant. And Silent Hill: Townfall. And one only one day before Onimusha: Way of the Sword. Which I’m not as interested in as the other two, but still, man.

"We have found ourselves over extended", new Xbox CEO says amid reports of plans for major job cuts

Julian Benson — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 10:08:15 +0000

The new Xbox CEO Asha Sharma and head of Xbox Game Studios Matt Booty are reportedly planning major job cuts across the gaming business next month. This marks a new chapter for Sharma, in which she plans to "reset the business". A barely-coded term for 'lay off a lot of people'.

Witcher 3 modders are restoring the RPG's massive cut plague questline, just in case CD Projekt's Songs of the Past expansion isn't enough extra Geralt

Mark Warren — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 09:22:12 +0000

Those modders, eh? Never ones to be outdone. CD Projekt whip out a surprise extra DLC for The Witcher 3 following months of speculation, revealing it's set to arrive in 2027. Naturally, that's now also the point when a group of the RPG's modders are planning to have an expansion-sized resurrection of a beefy questline CD Projekt cut from the initial version of TW3 fully up and running. They've got a demo out already.

Wonky witch fable 1666: Amsterdam is the kind of sexy nonsense I want from Assassin's Creed: Hexe

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 19:22:31 +0000

There have been so many Assassin's Creed games, and so many games inspired by Assassin's Creed, that it's easy to forget that Assassin's Creed used to be Weird. Or Weird for a game of its scale, anyway. I remember when Ubisoft revealed it, with an all-timer of an trailer showing Altaïr pouncing on some upstart Templars. And then, that flicker of code over masonry, that first hint that the medieval Crusades setting is a predatory digital facade.

There's never been an easier time to boycott Microsoft, the most boring video game publisher in the business

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 15:07:59 +0000

When I talk to other journalists and random bus stop strangers about the idea of divesting from Microsoft and Xbox - worth doing for many reasons besides the company's dealings with the Israeli military - there is often an air of learned helplessness, a kind of deer-in-headlights mentality. Microsoft's gaming biz is too huge to ignore. They own so much. They own a lot of the malarkey that gets eyeballs. Which I can confirm, based on day-to-day experience of traffic stats. Still, I would argue that they do not have any momentum with the things they own, and to be frank, a fair whack of their stuff does sod-all traffic for us. Microsoft today are institutionally incapable of being intriguing. As such, an extremely indulgent way of thinking about the BDS boycott is to treat it as positive encouragement to seek intrigue elsewhere.

Every detail of Blood Dungeon looks slapdash, but its mix of platformer and Vampire survivors gets my heart thumping

Julian Benson — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 13:31:39 +0000

I have sacrificed many an hour to the altar of Vampire Survivors and its kin. Deep Rock Galactic Survivors, Nimrods, Brotato, TerraTech Legion, Soulstone Survivors. I could go on. So I will, Rogue Genesia, 20 Minutes Till Dawn, Halls of Torment, Swarm Grinder. I've even put more time into the Warhammer Survivors demo than I'd care to admit. Many of them follow a similar formula to Poncle's original with only slight tweaks, and yet I'm still drawn into the loop of dodging about an arena, kiting hordes of enemies as my autofiring weapons soar up a generous power curve.

Blood Dungeon, though, is different. By stretching the familiar mechanics of Vampire Survivors over the skeleton of a platformer, Nidhogg's creators Messhof have made something delectably different.

Valve won't let retailers stock physical Steam gift cards anymore because "scammers have adapted" to whatever security measures they've tried

Julian Benson — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 11:15:00 +0000

Valve have stopped producing physical Steam Gift Cards for retailers, meaning once the current stock runs out you won't see them anywhere out in the wild. Valve say this is because no matter what protections they've added to the cards, "scammers have adapted".

While Valve will continue to sell Steam Digital Gift Cards through their shop, this means the days of trading in old physical games and using the credit to buy a gift card are coming to an end.

We're finally getting a Vanillaware game on PC - Muramasa: Revenant Blades, an expanded 4K edition of the gorgeous Japanese action RPG

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 09:56:58 +0000

For years, lovers of exquisite sprite designs have clamoured for Vanillaware to bring their action RPGs and strategy games to PC. Games like time-rewinding mecha soap opera 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim, or prancing kingdom saver Unicorn Overlord. The rationale for these games not appearing outside console has been nebulous, to date: at one point in 2024, Vanillaware and publishers Atlus appeared to blame each other for Unicorn Overlord's absence from desktops.

"Even dry and lost places can flourish with a little care": Waterful is a gentle, beautiful puzzler about drawing rivers that makes me yearn for something overwhelming

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 09:06:26 +0000

Waterful is that most appropriate and disquieting of things, a "nature-builder". It's a soft and colourful chillout game in which you cut rivers through procedurally generated landscapes with a cursor, drawing from a limited supply of water that is topped up by connecting springs.

Importantly, and perhaps dispiritingly, you can dig and refill the terrain as you please. Depending on the shape of the river and the depth of its bed, you'll cultivate different vegetation. The vegetation, in turn, attracts a range of creatures, from butterflies to big-eared foxes. For each creature, you get a sticker. There are also machines you can build to, for example, carry the watercourse over hills. Comparisons given by Berlin-based solo developer Lenja Kaufmann include Dorfromantik, Tiny Glade, Islanders, Terra Nil and Townscaper.

In Am I Nima, you must find and fuse words to convince your mother you're really her daughter

Oisin Kuhnke — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 21:55:25 +0000

Oh dear, here's an existentially uncomfortable (and genuinely potentially triggering around themes of abuse) one for you. Am I Nima, shown off this weekend during the Story Rich Showcase, is a visual novel in which you take on the role of the titular Nima, who is trying to convince her mother that she really is her daughter by combining words in her brain.

Whoops! Sand: Raiders of Sophie's server slam got so slammed it isn't coming out tomorrow anymore

Oisin Kuhnke — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 20:32:55 +0000

Welp! Just yesterday, Sand: Raiders of Sophie devs Hologryph and TowerHaus shared the release times of the desert-set extraction shooter where you have your own steampunk mobile fortress, which was set for release tomorrow, June 10th. Today, however? That release date has gone out the window.

You'll be able to change some parts of Final Fantasy 7 Revelation's story, but no matter what there's only one ending

Oisin Kuhnke — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 18:01:31 +0000

Last week, Square Enix graced us with the revelation that the final instalment of the Final Fantasy 7 Remake trilogy is just that, Final Fantasy 7 Revelation. It'll obviously follow on from Rebirth, which ends with [REDACTED], but where it goes from there is still generally a mystery given the various changes made so far. As it turns out, you'll be able to make a few changes yourself, except for one, important thing: the ending.

Big Walk was born during a COVID lockdown out of a distaste for birthday party Zoom calls

Oisin Kuhnke — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 17:02:51 +0000

You know, I've been thinking about going for a nice big walk sometime soon. Well, not that soon, maybe sometime in the summer? Before I lock anything in, I'll just watch this new thing about House House's Big Walk and… oh, would you look at that! It's got a release date now, and for this summer too!

Dragon's Dogma 2 is getting a frosty Dark Arisen expansion, plus two big updates that fix some of the things you moaned about back in 2024

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 16:22:00 +0000

Dragon's Dogma 2 is getting a Dark Arisen DLC expansion that introduces a chilly new mountainous area, in which there are flaming castles, some awful emaciated dragons, and ice giants who can freeze you solid by yawning. It'll arrive on October 9th after two free "major" updates, the first of which lands tomorrow.

The base game is also getting a permanent discount from June 24th. Surely, all of this is incentive enough to finally stop griping about those niggling launch-day microtransactions, quit caterwauling about the prospect of Pawns coming over all Jack Torrance, and hand uncle Capcom your pounds and pennies. The only reason I can think of for not buying Dragon's Dogma 2: Dark Arisen is that you hate ice giants. You don't… hate ice giants, do you? ◉╭╮◉

Square Enix whip out the defibrillator to bring back Kingdom Hearts 4 from the brink with a new trailer and promise of a PC release

Oisin Kuhnke — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 16:07:01 +0000

That company that makes the games about the plumber man, elf boy, and half-donkey half-gorilla held one of its "Directs" today, and lo and behold was the surprise showcase of a game that's been MIA for a surprisingly long time: Kingdom Hearts 4. The sequel was originally announced for the series' 20th anniversary in 2022, but has been noticeably absent for the past four years.

Before Darkness Falls is an Aliens: Dark Descent-style tactics game from former Frostpunk devs, and I did enjoy dying in its depths

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 15:37:03 +0000

The other day I posted a comment wondering whether anybody has ever made a colony simulator set in the Aliens universe, with players raising the Weyland-Yutani flag on planets that contain absolutely no parasitic lifeforms whatsoever [YOUR MISGIVINGS HAVE BEEN REPORTED TO CORPORATE. YOUR TERRAFORMING LICENSE HAS BEEN SUSPENDED INDEFINITELY. NO CRIMINAL CHARGES WILL BE FILED AT THIS TIME]. Some hours later, I realised that I'd sort of already played one. Before Darkness Falls is a "tactical survival game" in which you take charge of an industrial compound that is being nibbled away from below by a marauding evil.

The Guild Wars games have always been set in a world abandoned by the gods, in new MMO Guild Wars 3, you'll see why they left

Julian Benson — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 15:06:04 +0000

If you've played Guild Wars or its sequel, you'll know that the land Tyria is a godless place. It didn't used to be, but more than 1200 years before the events of the original 2005 MMO, the gods upped sticks and abandoned the planet, leaving the different guilds their own devices. As the series' name would suggest, those devices were largely swords and siege weapons.

In looking for a good spot in the series' timeline to set a new game that would be as alien to people who have played the games for the past 20 years as those who have never set foot in the land of Tyria, developer Arenaet have settled on the moment the gods decided to leave.

Playing its mystery-drenched demo suggests I'll like everything about About Fishing, except the fishing

James Archer — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 11:47:58 +0000

I spent this morning in the new demo of angler-detective mystery About Fishing – an updated and expanded sampler from the one that Oisin tried last year – and as a piece of playable marketing, it’s done the job. I am intrigued by its tale of mermaids and missing persons; I am absorbed in its creepy rural backdrop of dead streets and churches with prison cells in the basement; I am impressed by how it handles its cold, drizzly weirdness without ever going hey-hey wacky. Even when it introduces a thieving goose.

Basically, this place is horrible, and I want to spend more time in it. Despite the fact, and I’m aware that this might be an issue, that I wish I didn’t have to do so much goddamn fishing.

Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy devs learned to make melee combat on the job

Julian Benson — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 11:16:20 +0000

Give me a game where I can hoof an enemy over the side of the cliff like a cut price Leonidas, and I'm happy. (It seems I'm not the only one.) So, yes, while I was sad to see no swarms of rats in Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy, I was very happy with the switch from stealth gameplay to scrappy melee. I might have been more worried going in if I knew just how little experience developer Asobo Studio have making combat games.

"Nobody did a combat game before Resonance," lead level designer Valérian Robert told me, and then he explained how they pulled it off.

Yes, you have a gun in Gen Atlas, but Fumito Ueda doesn't want you to think it's a shooter

Julian Benson — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 09:31:23 +0000

Fumito Ueda, creator of Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, and the Last Guardian, showed off his new game at this weekend's Summer Game Fest showcase. Gen Atlas sees you step into the shoes of a scavenger in a desert world littered with the carcasses of vast robots. It falls to you to piece one of these machines back together and… well, what your aim is exactly is unclear. However, as stark as the landscapes of the dead world, was that your character has a machine gun slung across their back and, judging by a couple of sequences in the trailer, they're not afraid to use it.

This might not sound surprising, games have had guns since Spacewar!, but Ueda's games have either steered away from doing violence or, particularly in the case of Shadow of the Colossus, made you feel ruddy awful for killing something.

But, have no fear, reader: Fumito Ueda says he's not become trigger happy in his old age.

Just like Luftrausers before it, Wind Runners is proving I'm too careless a pilot to survive a bullet-hell dogfight

Julian Benson — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 08:00:00 +0000

I've been a fan of dogfighting games since playing Elite with my dad on his old Acorn computer. He'd do the flying and I'd fire the weapons. Maybe that division of labour is to blame for my biggest weakness as a pilot: knowing when to pull out of a strafe. Once I've my gunsights on an enemy I'll continue flying at them with my guns firing until either they explode or I do. In roguelite dogfighter Wind Runners, that cavalier approach is proving my downfall over and over.

The Wind Runners demo popped up on Steam over the weekend and I've been trying to complete a single run of its bullet hell dogfighting since then.

Star Trek: Outposts Unknown's demo introduces an upbeat settlement builder, though my crew of clocking-out ship slackers wouldn't last a day in RimWorld

James Archer — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 16:46:04 +0000

Offworld settlement builders delight in forcing their pebble-gathering, ore-hoarding colonists into a life of subsistence scrounging by way of disaster: a crashed spaceship or cryogenic malfunction leaving them no choice but to eke out an existence on a hostile rock. Star Trek: Outposts Unknown, announced yesterday and already bearing a demo, is different. Your team of explorers aren’t trapped; in fact, if they’re anything like mine, they’ll be knocking off and back on the mothership by dinnertime.

Gothic remake lockpicking backlash raises the fascinating question of whether anybody really enjoys lockpicking in RPGs

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 16:11:22 +0000

Alkimia Interactive and THQ's Gothic remake launched over the weekend, and many are the complaints that the RPG's revised lockpicking system is far too hard. I know, right - tricky lockpicking in a game set in a giant prison! Please excuse me while I lift both hands from the keyboard and strenuously knead my face into a shocked expression.

Stealth's been replaced with scrappy swordfighting in Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy, but what I really miss are the rat swarms

Julian Benson — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 16:00:00 +0000

I've never mastered the combat of Sekiro and Sifu. They're games that demand you recognise an incoming attack and match it with millisecond perfect parries and dodges. Success sees you turn a foe's assaults against them, ducking under their swinging blade and popping up behind them to deliver a precise punch to their kidney; failure sees you knocked to the ground or cut in two. So it's not great news for me that Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy has dropped its stealth roots in favour of combat inspired by the most exacting third-person melee games.

Thankfully, protagonist Sophia fights dirty.

Resident Evil Veronica is the remake I'm most excited about, because the original was such a mess

Jeremy Blum — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 15:38:24 +0000

Of all the Resident Evil remakes to burst forth from Capcom like zombie-spawn in recent years, I am most intrigued by the just-unveiled Resident Evil Veronica. The original game, released in 2000 for sixth generation consoles, is an important entry in the series, but it's also a mess that probably stands the most to benefit from a shiny coat of RE Engine paint.

To the delight of its skateboarding aliens, I have failed to solo Saturday morning cartoon-styled co-op roguelike Maximum Thunderness as if I have four hands

Mark Warren — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 15:37:32 +0000

A mass of flailing fingers flop against my desk. I'm doing badly at playing cartoony roguelike shooter Maximum Thunderness with a controller. The fact I'm trying to play its demo on mouse and keyboard at the same time, in order to appreciate the co-op element of the game's battles with skateboarding aliens, probably isn't helping. In fact, it almost certainly isn't.

This week in PC games: some enormous space sims and strategy games, plus a cheery prop hunt where you paint your own camouflage

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 14:30:46 +0000

Good news, everybody! We made it through the Summer Game Fest weekend pretty much unscathed. True, I have depleted neighbourhood stocks of ginseng and also, lost the ability to blink, but we got another Duskers out of it, didn't we? Also some footage of gunfights in a Fumito Ueda game, which distressed me less than it might have if I'd had any fluid left in my head when they screened the thing.

In equally happy news, we've dealt with the problem of the Maw eating Geoff Keighley and/or spawning a phantom double of Geoff Keighley. I mean, we didn’t do anything, really – I just like phantom Geoff's style. If you look closely you can see the original Geoff Keighley trapped inside his eyes, screaming and waving a sign that reads "Persona 6 is a lie". There is no time to be alarmed by this thought, because I have already prepared the latest list of PC game releases.

"Trust that we're going to be smart about this" Amazon Game Studios boss says of 007 First Light sequels, while insisting he didn't confirm who'll publish them

Mark Warren — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 13:43:39 +0000

Last week, Amazon gaming general manager Jeff Gattis rather put the cat amongst the pigeons when talking about James Bond's future in games now IO Interactive's 007 First Light is out. He was cited by Polygon as having said that, since they'll be happening post-Amazon's acquisition of the full Bond rights, any follow-up would be "done by MGM and, theoretically, by Amazon Game Studios".

When asked about Gattis' comments, Amazon were quick to declare that it's "still too early to discuss future projects". Now, Gattis himself has claimed that he never confirmed Amazon Game Studios would be publishing the next Bond game, while once again not setting in stone whether IO Interactive will be returning as its developers.

"We made a series of mistakes": GOG apologise for emailing Nazi symbols to people in newsletter about Slavic fantasy game

Mark Warren — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 12:40:48 +0000

Retro-focused game sellers GOG have apologised after sending out a newsletter featuring runes which have long served as Nazi symbols. The symbols appeared in the subject for an email promoting The End of the Sun, an adventure game about a Slavic fire mage who also dabbles in time manipulation.

Bleak, disquieting action game Virtue and a Sledgehammer blends family heartbreak with stout wall-smashing in its new demo

James Archer — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 12:00:26 +0000

Deconstructeam, of Many Nights a Whisper and The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood, say their newest game Virtue and a Sledgehammer is about "feeling like you no longer belong in the place you grew up." Judging from the newly released demo, it’s also about catharsis. Chunky, crumbly, crushing catharsis, injected through the handle of misappropriated demolition equipment.

Going by its demo, Ascenders: Beyond the Peak is a pitiless Darkest Dungeon-style climbing RPG in which one party member's fall could doom the rest

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 11:28:48 +0000

Seldom has the phrase "balance your party" carved deeper clawmarks into my soul than when playing Ascenders: Beyond the Peak, a turn-based cosmic horror RPG in which you guide groups of alpinists up cursed mountains in search of terrible artefacts. Each level is a grid-based cliff face made up of slippery ledges, crumbling overhangs, unearthly varmints such as giant spiders, and resource caches such as the rucksacks of mountaineers who came before.

Not even Crazy Taxi: World Tour is safe from generative AI, as Sega admit they used it to make background assets

Mark Warren — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 09:19:54 +0000

Ah cool, that reboot of 90s arcade classic Crazy Taxi Sega have been teasing for a little while, I thought during an otherwise rather meh Xbox showcase yesterday. Ah bollocks, I subsequently thought upon logging on this morning and seeing that Sega have disclosed their use of generative AI as part of Crazy Taxi: World Tour's development.

One of Subnautica 2's ousted execs is now working on a sequel to ship-scavenging horror game Duskers

Mark Warren — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 21:00:00 +0000

Surprise. the follow-up to Misfits Attic's Duskers is called Duskers 2.0. Get ready for more spooky and strategic scavenging of shipwrecks hovering ominously above planets, this time with the goal of establishing colonies which can give the denizens of a doomed universe a second chance.

"It is alive": the makers of 2024 horror GOTY Mouthwashing are back with perhaps the most dreadful World War tank sim you'll ever play

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 21:00:00 +0000

It's hard to conceive of a nastier workplace than Mouthwashing's spaceship - that delirious, foam-clogged labyrinth of cracked sunsets and fire-freshness - but developers Wrong Organ are certainly upping the ante with their new game Carcass Clad. Announced just today, it's a co-op simulation about a tank crew traversing a gutted and unholy city, loosely inspired by the 1939 "Winter War" between Finland and the Soviet Union.

Three players must collaborate to operate a dreadful machine, while going up against other dreadful machines covered in squirming and screaming "divine livestock". Each player handles a different part of the tank. The Commander scouts through the periscope, plots routes, and monitors the radio; the Driver looks after steering, fuel consumption, and power allocation; the Gunner aims, shoots and reloads, as fast as they safely can. Amongst other difficulties for international audiences, all the tank controls are labelled in Finnish.

Valheim 1.0 release date announced, so prepare to ward off "ancient evils and lurking threats" in its treacherously icy final biome

Mark Warren — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 20:45:00 +0000

It may, as I write this, be summer showcase season. However, you should get ready to wrap up warm. Co-op Viking survivor Valheim's set to get very cold soon, as its 1.0 release brings a final new biome, the Deep North. "A frigid land encased in ice and mystery" this dangerous locale and Valheim 1.0 will arrive on September 9th.

El Paso, Elsewhere 2 invites you back into its moody, supernatural neo-noir world with sick flips and Frankenstein

Oisin Kuhnke — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 20:30:00 +0000

There are very few studios with an output as varied as Strange Scaffold's. They've got games about trading organs and babies, NSFW clicking, cooking delicious meals for kaiju, and, soon enough, sending pedestrians into a fantasy world to help an elf girl level up by running them over with your car. As it turns out, however, as revealed during today's PC Gaming show, Strange Scaffold have another, slightly familiar card up their sleeve: a sequel to El Paso, Elsewhere.

Play a parasitic brain mushroom in Signet City, the first-person fungalpunk RPG from the creator of Citizen Sleeper

Julian Benson — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 20:30:00 +0000

I'm afraid to tell you, dear reader, that you're a parasite. Living on the lifeblood of others, that's you. Or, you will be if you choose to play Signet City, the new game from Jump Over The Age, creators of In Other Waters and Citizen Sleeper. That's because it's a first-person fungalpunk RPG in which you're a spore-born parasite taking root in the brains of the inhabitants of a British coastal town.

The Sunday Papers

James Archer — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 10:00:00 +0000

Sundays are for recovering after a late night of trailerblogging and oop, no, wait, there’s another two full-length showcases just this evening. It’s too late for me, readers, but you can save yourselves with some more thoughtful, maybe even calming reads on games and not-games. I bet none of them even have the words "great experience for our players."

Silent Hill 2 remakers Bloober Team are boldly going where few horror devs have gone before in Star Trek: Shadow Frontier, a "psychological thriller" starring Ro Laren

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell — Sat, 06 Jun 2026 23:10:00 +0000

Here's one I wasn't quite expecting: Silent Hill 2 remake and Cronos: The New Dawn developers Bloober Team are working on a Star Trek game in collaboration with license owners Paramount. As you might imagine, given Bloober's pedigree, it doesn't appear to be a very uplifting Star Trek game. It is not a Star Trek game in which you would expect to have an Earl Grey teaparty on the Holodeck, with Data playing the viola. Called Star Trek: Shadow Frontier, it's a "psychological thriller" set on an uncharted planet that has become a spaceship graveyard. Something with tendrils lurks hereabouts, and it's trying to eat your mind.

Self-cloning strategy game The Alters is getting a 20 hour terraforming expansion that plays with the problem of age

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell — Sat, 06 Jun 2026 21:00:00 +0000

Self-cloning sci-fi strategy game The Alters is getting a DLC expansion in which you terraform the world of the original game, using cryosleep to fast-forward the years, even as your hard-working alternate selves age and wither. Out on 13th July, it's a 20 hour epilogue starring Jan Scientist, one of Jan Dolski's vat-grown doubles, who creates his own workforce of clones while investigating a phenomenon called "the Oasis".

Over the course of the expansion, you'll build up a new underground base, populate the volcanic soils with flora and fauna, and contend with the planet's increasing hostility to your efforts. It's not quite clear from the release, but I imagine there's also a moderate risk of being dragged from your cryopod and crucified by a bunch of septuagenarian doppelgangers. Anyway, with useful irony I can't think of any more synonyms for "clone". Here's a trailer.

Ukrainian-made Lovecraftian horror game The Sinking City 2 finally has a release date, and you can play the first hour right now on Steam

Julian Benson — Sat, 06 Jun 2026 20:00:00 +0000

Frogwares' are ready for you to dip your toes into their survival horror game The Sinking City 2. What happens to said toes in those tentacle-filled Lovecraftian waters is your responsibility. As well as a release date – August 18th –, the Ukrainian developers have released the game's first hour as a demo on Steam.

You'll step into the waterlogged gumshoes of private investigator Calvin as he searches for his missing lover, Faye, in the city of Arkham, a flooded Massachusetts town overwhelmed by Cthulhu horrors. Our Jeremy played a portion of the game recently and said it might just be "we'll finally have a good Cthulhu game that can stand up to the likes of what Pyramid Head and Nemesis have given genre enthusiasts."

What are we all playing this weekend?

Julian Benson — Sat, 06 Jun 2026 07:00:00 +0000

Saturdays are for lying in bed and resting your sore typing fingers, muttering curses at Geoff Keighley under your breath. They're not particularly mean curses, I quite enjoy covering events like SGF. It's nice having a few hours where game announcements pour forth like bubbling water. Yes, those bubbles can be the ineffable gassing up of marketing hype, but I won't dismiss everything we see as pure cynicism.

And besides, as tired as I may be this morning, it's not as bad as the time I worked a week of night shifts covering E3 at PCGamesN. At the end of the week, on the last train home, I fell asleep, thouroughly missed my station and got kicked off at the terminus. With no phone battery and no taxis in the small village, I had to sleep in a park until the next morning when the trains started up again and I could get back to my bed in Bath.

It's not an Imposter, it's a spin-off: multiplayer backstabbing game Among Us has spawned a single player detective story

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell — Sat, 06 Jun 2026 01:11:25 +0000

Good news, people who suck at getting away with murder in quintessential pandemic lockdown game Among Us. Developers Innersloth have announced a single player detective spin-off, Among Us Story: On Guard, in which you play a spaceship security guy trying to catch an Imposter – possibly, more than one Imposter - before they gut the whole crew. You'll need to prove your own innocence, too.

Brace yourself, Mr Bond: 007 First Light is getting some pirate king DLC alongside New Game+ and extra TacSim challenges

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell — Sat, 06 Jun 2026 00:39:39 +0000

Io Interactive's Hitmanly Bond adventure 007 First Light is getting some DLC, and the DLC involves PIRATES. Specifically, it involves pirate king Bawma, played by singer and actor Lenny Kravitz, who makes a fleeting appearance in the main game. In the upcoming DLC, players will travel to the pirate haven of Aleph to help Bawma out with a mysterious request.

What does it involve? Io aren't saying, just yet, but they have published a roadmap for the game's first year of updates. I've hitherto expressed violent objections to the unromantic term "roadmap" in game marketing, but I will let it slide here, because James Bond drives a lot of cars, and presumably consults a map now and then when he isn't dodging bullets. Anyway, let's dig in.

Square Enix reveal Final Fantasy 7: Revelation, the final part of the remake trilogy, coming to PC in 2027

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell — Sat, 06 Jun 2026 00:04:59 +0000

Square Enix have announced the third part of their Final Fantasy 7 action RPG remake trilogy. It's called Final Fantasy 7 Revelation, and it's out on all platforms including PC in spring 2027. Yep, there's no wait for a port this time. We get to live out the closing act of Cloud Strife's journey and participate in the associated Discourse at the same time as those console gremlins.

The publishers dropped a trailer for Revelation at this year's Summer Game Fest, revealing two additional/returning playable characters - Vincent Valentine and Cid Highwind. They'll join Cloud, Tifa, Barret, Red XIII, Yuffie and Cait Sith on a mission to avert an apocalyptic Meteor spell and defeat swishy bad boy Sephiroth, who is on the brink of godhood. They'll also jump out of airships a lot, in curious echo of the battle royale genre.

Assassin's Creed creator's forgotten fantasy game 1666: Amsterdam will finally release this year, over a decade after Ubisoft ripped it from his fingers

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 23:13:04 +0000

Original Assassin's Creed creative director Patrice Désilets and his team at Panache Digital Games have announced a new version of 1666: Amsterdam, the supernatural history game Désilets once worked on a lifetime ago at THQ Montreal. What's more, the game now has a 30 minute prologue on Steam and the Epic Games Store, with an early access release coming later this year.

"Overwhelming power": Fumito Ueda's giant robot game gets an official title and, wait a minute, is that a gun?

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 22:25:02 +0000

Friends, it is almost time to be very, very sad because a massive metal man fell over and died. Ico and Shadow of the Colossus creator Fumito Ueda has dropped the first proper footage of his forthcoming mech game project, announced back in 2024 with the codename Project Robot. The official title is Gen Atlas.

Ueda and development studio genDESIGN have also shared details of the game's plot and setting. It's described as "a single-player, open-world action-adventure game", and takes place on an abandoned, "living" planet full of derelict machines.

Tupac Shakur joins Snoop Dogg in Stranger Than Heaven, which also has a release date once you've finished getting over the whole dead rapper cameo business

Mark Warren — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 22:10:27 +0000

Right. So. Stranger Than Heaven, the Like A Dragon/Yakuza devs' hop through different decades of 20th century Japanese history? You're probably already aware that Snoop Dogg's in it. Well, a digitally resurrected version of fellow rapper Tupac Shakur's also in it. For reasons. Reasons that I'm sure will be readily apparent when Stranger Than Heaven comes out in January 2027.

"A new hunting ground for the ultimate apex predator" - Alien: Isolation 2 gets its first proper trailer

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 21:52:36 +0000

Creative Assembly and Sega have screened the first proper trailer for Alien: Isolation 2, confirming in the process that the new xenomorph horror game is set on a planet. A planet of windy trees, thick fog, and much wreckage. There is a cage with the bars cracked and bent outward. I'm pretty sure they weren't keeping spare fuel cells in there.

MIA action-adventure Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin resurfaces in the hands of noted katana enthusiasts Platinum Games

James Archer — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 21:40:00 +0000

Platinum Games, the game development studio that evidently are to edged weapon action games what Marks & Spencer are to inoffensive socks, are making a TMNT game. It’s called Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin, it’s being published by Paramount Games Studio, and it’s just been announced as part of Summer Game Fest 2026.

Keener fans of pizza-gnawing reptiles will remember that there was already a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin game in development at Destroy All Humans! remake studio Black Forest Games, to be published by THQ Nordic. Unfortunately, it seems that mass layoffs at the former have taken their toll, and Paramount – TMNT’s rights holders – have asked Platinum to have a go instead. Here’s the teaser trailer for the new version, which doesn’t show much, except that it's likely a close adaptation of the (unusually grim) Turtles comic of the same name.

"Madness and intrigue": Capcom announce Resident Evil: Veronica, a remake of the 26-year-old Dreamcast hit, with a first-person trailer

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 21:26:36 +0000

The zombies are eating well this summer. Capcom have revealed the much-rumoured remake of Resident Evil: Code Veronica, originally released on Dreamcast a billion centuries ago in 2000.

Summer Game Fest 2026 everything announced for PC

Julian Benson — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 17:20:03 +0000

And with that the Summer Game Fest is over. At least, the official Geoff Keighley showcase - there are still many more streams over the weekend. I wouldn't say there were many surprises, but it was excellent to get a first look at games like Alien Isolation 2, Fumito Ueda's genAtlas, and Guild Wars 3.

If you don't want to watch through the full two hours. Below you will find every everything announced for PC at Summer Game Fest 2026.

Guild Wars 3 announced, following some domain digging unearthing a recently updated website and a mysterious teaser from ArenaNet

Mark Warren — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 15:37:45 +0000

Update: Yep, Guild Wars 3's now been announced. No release date yet, but the Steam page is live if you fancy wishlisting. Check out the trailer below:

Is Microsoft's $69 billion Activision Blizzard deal paying off? Xbox boss Asha Sharma says it's "hard to say how to think about those decisions"

Mark Warren — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 12:09:29 +0000

Just under 1000 days ago, or about two and a half years ago if you measure time like a normal person, Microsoft completed their acquisition of Activision Blizzard following a lengthy legal process. It cost $68.7 billion and meant Xbox's parent company now lorded over the likes of Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, and Overwatch. Not a small thing for the corporate behemoth to have done, then. Looking back in 2026, was it a shrewd move? Well, amid some bigging up of the series I just mentioned, current Xbox CEO Asha Sharma has said it's "hard to say how to think about those decisions".

Summer Game Fest 2026 livestream: Join our liveblog for all the main show and Day of the Devs announcements

James Archer — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 10:55:19 +0000

Our annual Summer Game Fest liveblog returns this evening, June 5th, for another up-to-the-minute updatening of all the news, trailers, and announcements unveiled during the Summer of Geoff’s main showcase. And, since it follows straight after, we’re sticking around for the indie-focused Day of the Devs. That’s - hang on - two liveblogs in one. Unprecedented, except for those times we did it before.

Gothic's remake is out today, adding new detail and awfulness to the 2001 RPG's bustling prison world

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 09:50:33 +0000

Hey you! You're finally awake – oh, hang on, I'm thinking of the other fantasy yarn in which you start out as a shackled prisoner. Today is release day for Alkimia Interactive and THQ Nordic's remake of Gothic, the 2001 first-person RPG from Piranha Bytes. It'll be live on Steam in a matter of hours, with a demo still available as of writing.

While much plumped up with expanded questlines, more NPC routines, new traversal abilities and "modernized" combat, it's still broadly the same tale of a bunch of convicts trapped beneath a magic dome, quarrying ore to sell to a king who is waging an endless war against the orcs. That's the king in the intro cinematic, below, looking down at the orc's head in his fist like he can't quite remember how it got there. How long has he been carrying that head? Did he confuse it with his coffee mug at breakfast?

The Steam Machine and Steam Frame are shipping this summer, Valve confirm as the pair join the Verified program

Mark Warren — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 08:54:27 +0000

It's coming home. It's coming to your home (provided you've got the money and desire to buy it). The Steam Machine is coming to homes this summer, Valve have confirmed as they've added both the Machine and Steam Frame to their verified doodads program. Previously ushed back by ongoing RAM shortages, the pair are now following in the footsteps of the already released Steam Controller.

Lexispell is Balatro for people that love spelling bees and hate gambling

Oisin Kuhnke — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 21:54:53 +0000

Game gets popular, games gets clones, that's just how the cookie crumbles. Vampire Survivors, Buckshot Roulette, Lethal Company; as soon as those games blew up, derivatives were a guarantee. This is true of Balatro too of course, a game which has produced so many clones that wildly swing between dealing with gambling in a tactful manner and outright just saying that it's good, actually. So how about a Balatro-like that forgoes the gambling, and asks you to whip out a dictionary instead?

Rust's latest update asks you to say goodbye to your old outdated face and hello to your new, handsome one

Oisin Kuhnke — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 20:33:02 +0000

It's time to say hello to your new face! This would be a creepy as all hell a sentence in just about any other context (perhaps it still is), but I am not a plastic surgeon, I am a person that writes about video games and the things they do. This time, in things that video games are doing, is brought to you by Rust, as it's received an update that gives the player character model a bit of a glow-up.

Development on Prologue: Go Wayback is ending as PlayerUnknown Productions lays off an unspecified amount of staff

Oisin Kuhnke — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 17:56:57 +0000

I guess we're not going to find out what comes after the prologue after all. By that I mean, some bad news came out of PlayerUnknown Productions yesterday. The studio shared a statement on their Dwitter account to share that development on Prologue: Go Wayback is ending, as PlayerUnknown himself Brendan Greene says that he has "reached the limits of how far I can continue to fund this journey in its current form."

Unknown Worlds outline a bunch of incoming small Subnautica 2 updates including predator behaviour adjustments and proximity chat

Oisin Kuhnke — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 17:07:02 +0000

How about a little look ahead at what's apparently coming to Subnautica 2? Following the game's incredibly strong launch that is probably going to force Krafton to pay out that $250 million bonus after all, Unknown Worlds have released another dev log outlining a few details about future updates.

"We didn't have the content needed to do it justice at the time": Helldivers 2 is finally getting a roguelite system Arrowhead experimented with pre-launch

Mark Warren — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 14:45:27 +0000

Late last year, Helldivers 2 creative director Johan Pilestedt briefly teased on social media that Arrowhead had put together a prototype for a roguelite mode which would fundamentally change the shooter. Months on, the studio have properly pulled the cover off said system. It's dubbed Planet Warfronts and is coming as part of a raft of changes/additions to Helldivers 2's intergalactic perma-conflict.

Witcher devs' Project Hadar will make you feel all of the open-world emotions, a new job ad suggests, though sorry it still isn't a cosmic Japanese horror game

Mark Warren — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 12:04:40 +0000

They might have proven they deal in secret extra DLC for decade-old RPGs this year, but for my money, Project Hadar remains the most mysterious game CD Projekt have in the works. It's always there in their financial reports alongside The Witcher 4 and Cyberpunk 2, flaunting its sheer unknowableness. Its creators, meanwhile, have said precious little regarding what it looks like, aside from confirming that it's not one weirdly specific thing: a cosmic horror game set in feudal Japan.

That's left the curious to scour the likes of job listings for various roles on Project Hadar. Previous ones have suggested it'll be a bit action RPG-ish and have melee combat. The latest, spotted by GamesRadar, paints it as being open-world and keen on making you cry.

Star Wars Zero Company release date leaks ahead of Summer Game Fest, and its XCOM-ish star warring isn't too far, far away

Mark Warren — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 10:28:12 +0000

The release date for Bit Reactor and Respawn's XCOM-coded strategy game Star Wars Zero Company has leaked ahead of the Summer Geoffs. Those in the mood to order a squad around in the midst of the Clone Wars before the summer's out are in luck, as Zero Company's only a couple of months away.

Bond rights holders Amazon MGM have "a great relationship" with 007 First Light devs IO Interactive, but say it's "still too early to discuss future projects"

Mark Warren — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 09:33:09 +0000

Update: An Amazon spokesperson provided the following statement to RPS on the company's plans for Bondulence going forwards: "Amazon MGM holds the rights to any future James Bond video games but it’s still too early to discuss future projects. We have a great relationship with IO Interactive and are proud of what we've accomplished together on 007 First Light. Our partners at IO will reveal more about 007 First Light in the near future and we’re looking forward to sharing what’s next."

Original story follows:

"One discovers, one guides, and one strikes the final blow": Ikumi Nakamura's new yokai-hunting game Kemuri is turning co-op into a ritual, somehow

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 16:39:44 +0000

Our chums at PlayStation have shared more about Kemuri, the giddy new third-person action game from a team lead by former Tango Gameworks developer and E3 2019 scene-stealer Ikumi Nakamura. In case you missed the 2023 announcement, it casts you as an athletic yokai hunter swooping and flipping around a "sprawling vertical city". The obvious reference point is Ghostwire: Tokyo, Nakamura's previous and more ponderous yokai-hunting project for Tango. She left the studio before that game's completion, but she appears to have brought a lot of the same inspirations to Kemuri. Here's a video.

God of War Laufey and Wolverine are snubbing PC, as rumoured, but I bet they come crawling back sometime after the launch of PS6

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 15:19:16 +0000

In the recently announced God Of War Laufey, you will not step into the shoes of John Kratos's dearly departed wife Faye. You will not embark on a rollercoaster adventure through a syncretic, pick-and-mix "Everywhen" of dead mythological figures that sounds suspiciously like the backdrop for a future God Of War Smash Bros.

There will be no "intimate, brutal combat", combining the fluidity and juggle potential of God of War's Ancient Greek era with the camera perspective and architectural stylings of the Norse instalments. You will not get to punch people so hard they sneeze their souls out, or lacerate them with a flippity-dippity ribbon sword. You will not get to obliterate a Tibetan dharmapāla, or kick sand in the face of the Egyptian goddess of disease. You will not get to experience this famously masculine series through the eyes of a woman, and never ever shall you befriend a cube of cosmic jelly.

Forza Horizon 6 gets customisable interiors thanks to a modder who couldn't resist swapping the seats of their beemer

Mark Warren — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 14:37:32 +0000

Forza Horizon 6's car customisation, while packing plenty of under-the-hood tweaks and a decent amount of bodykits, isn't as in-depth as the likes of the Need For Speed series usually offer. The inability to mess around with your ride's interior is one of the most noticeable omissions, to the extent it's an area newly-announced racer Clutch is looking to get a leg up on Playground's juggernaut in. In the meantime, a Forza modder's managed to get some basic interior customision up and running on one of Horizon 6's ten million motors.

"The difference is not just that you can’t fight back, it’s that you feel like you shouldn’t": Alien Isolation's lead designer wants you to "respect" the dinos in The Lost Wild

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 12:20:00 +0000

Annapurna Interactive have shared a new trailer and fresh details for The Lost Wild, a survival horror game set on an island of wrecked scientific bases, where dinosaurs have somehow endured into the modern era – a kind of "jurassic park", if you will. Announced back in 2022, it's the work of Great Ape Games, a team of seasoned UK developers with credits at Rare, Hanger 13, The Chinese Room, and Supermassive. The creative director is Gary Napper, who joined in 2025 according to his LinkedIn. Inevitably, the latest press materials focus pretty heavily on Napper's previous experience working on Creative Assembly's Alien: Isolation. Like that game, The Lost Wild challenges you to outwit and evade some dynamic and adaptable enemy AI: you don't appear to have any weapons, so making use of distractions and the environment is key.

The major thematic break from Isolation, according to Napper, is that the developers want you to avoid killing the dinosaurs because they are fellow beings who are just trying to survive. Not like those awful Aliens, who are just metaphors for sex, capitalism and the Vietnam War.

Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis studio have used "AI-assisted tools" during development, but swear "any AI-assisted assets were either replaced or refined by humans"

Mark Warren — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 11:50:00 +0000

Tomb Raider: Legacy Of Atlantis's fresh trailer during last night's PlayStation showcase came with the news that its release has been pushed back to February 12th, 2027. Alongside that, the game's Steam page has been fleshed out a bit more, including the addition of an AI generated content disclosure notice.

Control Resonant release date? Yeah that's nice, now move aside so I can look at its system requirements and ohhh that's a lot of SSD space

James Archer — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 11:18:26 +0000

Control Resonant, Remedy’s first foray into hacky and slashy character action, has a release date: it’s September 24th 2026, and there’s a new story trailer to prove it. Another case of the games industry playing Dodge the GTA 6? Maybe, maybe not, though this September is getting awfully crowded, with Konami just announcing that Silent Hill: Townfall is out on the very same day.

Either way, dates are okay and everything, but I’m more concerned with Control Resonant’s system requirements, which have quietly appeared on the game’s Steam page with no apparent mention elsewhere. And, well, hope you’ve got 100GB of free SSD space.

Texturetown is a Frankenstein's MMO created by remixing Club Penguin, Pirates of the Caribbean Online and other dead MMOs

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 09:45:00 +0000

I've really been getting into videogame collages, lately – projects like Funi Racoon, a verminous cache of Windows 95 desktop materials and Easter Island sculpture, and Water Level/b.l.u.e. EXPLORATION, a "plunderludic" in which Dark Souls, Super Mario 64, and Kingdom Hearts swim through each other. To that short list add Texturetown, "an algorithmically remixed MMO created from assets of now-defunct mid-2000's children's MMOs", devised by LA-based academic Aidan Strong. It's an eerie, dysfunctional homage to an early noughties gold rush in online spaces for kids, a Backroom-style memorial to abandoned servers and the youthful experiences they once facilitated. God, I'm old.

Marathon season 2 launch plagued by anteaters, monkeys and weasels, with Bungie dishing out free gear to say sorry for the server issues

Mark Warren — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 09:12:49 +0000

Watch out! An unruly gang of animals have been accosting Marathon right as its season 2 update has gone live! Developers Bungie have been hard at work getting the creatures under control, and have promised to dish out some free gear to affected players as a make good.

Rayman Legends was a timeless 2D platformer with beautiful art, but I'll grudgingly admit that its remake is an improvement

Julian Benson — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 22:00:00 +0000

In my memory, Rayman Legends is a timeless classic. Released in 2013, it arrived at a moment when Ubisoft were becoming best known for po-faced games like Assassin's Creed and innumerable Tom Clancy spinoffs, yet Rayman Legends was a gorgeous 2D platformer brimming over with silliness and slapstick that showed off the publisher's creative talents and uniquely French humour.

So the news that Ubisoft is remaking it as Rayman Legends Retold, dropping its 2D art for 3D animation was not well received in the Benson household, I can tell you.

Silent Hill: Townfall wants you to "fear the truth behind the static" when it arrives in September

Oisin Kuhnke — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 21:59:09 +0000

Here's the thing. When Konami announced that Silent Hill was making a comeback with not only a remake of its most beloved entry, but two new games from different studios, I felt quite curmudgeonly about it. I still do about that Silent Hill 2 remake, to be honest. Unfortunately, I thought that Silent Hill f was actually quite good, so good that here I am almost a year later still thinking about it. All of this is to say that hearing Silent Hill: Townfall, the slightly Scottish take on the series, now has a release date is just that little bit tantalising.

Copy animals' movements to turn into them, or fuse them to travel further in Mimic Meadows

Oisin Kuhnke — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 20:43:05 +0000

I want you to look me dead in the eyes and tell me you've never copied the way an animal moves in your life. Just try to, I'll know you're lying. I know you've hopped like a frog, flapped your arms like a bird, ran on all fours like a dog. It's fun! How about a video game where you sort of do the same thing? Well, I've got one in my pouch called Mimic Meadows, a puzzle game in which you copy the movement of animals to transform into them.

Dungeon Lurker's crunchy, grimey pixel art hides a metatextual secret beneath its roguelike, dungeon crawling veneers

Oisin Kuhnke — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 18:07:34 +0000

Dungeon crawlers conceptually appeal to me as a genre, but I've never quite found one that I've entirely clicked with. I'm talking oldschool dungeon crawlers here, where you take each step as it comes. I want to crawl some dungeons! Perhaps just not like that. Hopefully, Dungeon Lurker, with its crunchy dark fantasy pixel art and muddy, deep sound effects, will be able to make the difference.